Immigration reform deal hangs on border security

The Gang of Eight’s hopes for a Senate supermajority is running into the GOP’s push for a dramatic crackdown on border security — testing the limits of the bipartisan coalition that’s propelling the bill through Congress.

With Congress back this week to work on the measure, Senate negotiators want to pick up as many as two dozen Republican votes in a show of force that compels the House to act. But the result has to be much stricter than the current version of the bill to give it any hope of passing there either. They’ve got to do it without alienating the vast majority of Senate Democrats who like the bill as it is.

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And whatever happens, it has to keep Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) satisfied.

Rubio, a key member of the Gang of Eight, is shopping around a proposal to have Congress — not the Department of Homeland Security — write the border control strategy that would be a prerequisite for most of the other elements of reform. Rubio hasn’t yet landed on specific parameters, but, arguing that Americans don’t trust their government to get it right, Rubio wants lawmakers to craft the plan at the outset, rather than leave the details up to the Obama administration.

But already, reform proponents worry that the Senate supermajority is an elusive goal that could undermine the bill, particularly on border security.

“We are advocating for a strong and tight and effective a bill as possible. If that means we are targeting 62 votes, then 62 on a strong bill is better than 75 on a weak bill that looks like a special interest bonanza,” said Marshall Fitz, a veteran of the 2006 and 2007 reform fights who now directs immigration policy at the liberal Center for American Progress.

Rubio doesn’t see how the current version of the legislation gets enough votes to break a filibuster, let alone the 70-plus votes that Gang of Eight leaders want. Republicans view border security as a threshold issue, and many have told him that the requirements must be tightened before they can even consider backing the bill, Rubio has said.

“It’s very simple. If we can come up with a plan that people have confidence in for the border, I believe we’ll have immigration reform,” Rubio said recently on “Hannity” on Fox News. “If we cannot, we will not, and we should not. I don’t think it will pass without those measures in there. I just don’t.”

Rubio has often gotten his way in the Gang of Eight deliberations. Well aware that his continued involvement is critical to the cause of bipartisan immigration reform, the group has made a series of concessions that give him rhetorical, if not substantive wins.

He wanted a cut-off date that prevented recent undocumented immigrants from legalizing, and got it. He wanted to sell the Gang of Eight bill to conservative media before the official release, and did it despite the group’s oath of secrecy. He wanted an extended debate in the Judiciary Committee, and secured one. He was “disappointed” when the committee rejected a stronger system for tracking visa holders, and the panel returned several days later to pass a fix that satisfied him.

He’s reached out to top Republican targets such as Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada and Rob Portman of Ohio, as well as border state senators and undecided Democrats to gauge their demands for the bill. He’s also consulted with border security officials outside the administration and House members focused on border issues, according to Rubio’s office.